Teflon Market Still Growing After 50 Years In 1938, Roy Plunkett Was Experimenting For Du Pont And By Accident Came Up With A White, Powdery Resin That Had A ``whole Mess Of Very Good Properties.``

June 6, 1985|By Richard M. Harnett, United Press International

Not long ago test chemists at du Pont boiled more than 100 different liquids, most of them nasty ones like sulfuric acid, in Teflon-lined containers to prove a point and create a new market for the Teflon.

The new use for the remarkable plastic is in the piping, filters and containers for the silicon chip manufacturing industry, where mean acids and chemicals are essential.

Teflon, discovered by Roy Plunkett nearly 50 years ago, still seems to be nearly as exotic a man-made product as silicon. It is used to make parts for spaceships, automobiles, kitchen utensils and people.

Artificial kneecaps, hip joints, heart valves and arteries are made of Teflon.

``It`s a very good repair material for the human body,`` Plunkett said in an interview, ``because it is inert and long-lasting.``

Teflon-lined pots and pans came on the market nearly 20 years ago. They astonished women, who still were called housewives, by their ability to prevent the food from sticking.

``Nothing sticks to it,`` Plunkett said.

The application to electronic chip-making is based on the ``non-stick`` quality carried to the extreme. No acids and solvents can break into Teflon and become contaminated by it. Nor does Teflon absorb anything from the solvents.

Du Pont, which makes Teflon, and a group of companies that fabricate it, introduced the new piping, filters and 50-gallon Teflon-lined drums at the recent Wescon industry show in San Mateo.

Plunkett, who now is 75 and devotes most of his time to playing golf in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he lives, came to the show to help introduce the new Teflon products.

``Who would have thought that Teflon would find itself in the mainstream of high-tech manufacturing?`` he asked.

``I don`t know a whole lot about the manufacturing of semiconductors, but I know it involves use of highly reactive chemicals. It gives me great satisfaction knowing that something I worked on is continuing to find new uses even after almost 50 years.``

Plunkett attributed his discovery of Teflon to ``serendipity, a flash of genius, or maybe a lucky accident.``

He said he was working on refrigerants for du Pont in 1938, using tetrafluoroethylene under pressure and adding hydrogen chloride over a carbon catalyst to produce a gas.

``One day when we opened the valve, no gas would come out. We shook the cylinder and out came a white powder.``

The fluorocarbon resin found in that cylinder ``had a whole mess of very good properties,`` Plunkett said. ``It was almost chemically inert. It was not affected in any way by the atmosphere. It could be used at very low temperature up to 500 degrees continuously. It had good electrical properties. It was almost self-lubricating. It was fire-resistant.``

Teflon was quickly put to use in secret World War II military applications, including gaskets for the Manhattan Project and radar.

Besides being pleased to find his 1938 discovery is still high-tech in 1985, and that about $1 billion worth of it is sold every year, Plunkett also is delighted about his recent installation in the Inventors Hall of Fame, along with Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Henry Ford and Alexander Graham Bell.